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We all know that The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's popcorn novel
about weird signs, wonderful conspiracies and a hunt for buried
treasure, has been an unparalleled publishing phenomenon. Can Ron
Howard's lumbering, po-faced adaptation of this mumbo-jumbo match
its success? Perhaps, but it certainly failed the taste test in
Cannes.

Critics queued for more than an hour to get into a film that, as
everyone grumbled, was obviously too long at 148 minutes. Cannes
critics have little time for anything over the 100-minute mark.
Even so, the sprinkling of titters that added sparkle to the second
half of the film was more derisory than usual.

But the crunch moment came when Tom Hanks, as the earnest
professor of symbology Robert Langdon, looked Audrey Tautou's
Sophie Neveau in the face and said: "You're the heir! You are the
last descendant of Jesus Christ!"

At that point, 900 weary critics laughed as one. After a couple
of hours of leap-frogging plot adorned with swelling music and
fancy camera angles, there had to be some relief.

When, finally, the camera swept back crazily to Hanks, gazing at
the spot where, he had deduced, Mary Magdalene's sarcophagus now
lay, there was the deathly sound of no one clapping.

A few people whistled - a sign of derision in Europe - but, in
truth, The Da Vinci Code was not actually bad enough for anyone to
enjoy tearing strips off it. Like Tom Hanks, whose face was pursed
in permanent perplexity throughout the film, it just took itself
too seriously. If the novel was popcorn, Howard's film was an
overcooked goose.

One unavoidable problem with The Da Vinci Code as a film is that
every inconsistency and impossibility in the story is enlarged once
acted out.

No James Bond film makes much sense either, but The Da Vinci
Code is a bid to rewrite history. Carrying all this freight of
history, it has to look as if it makes sense. But its narrative
holes cannot be willed away. Would a sober American university
professor, told by a girl he has never met before that he is about
to be arrested for a murder he did not commit, immediately try to
escape? Would the French police (in the form of the ever-splendid
Jean Reno) chase the pair for weeks through several countries but,
having cornered them, never take their statements?

The more burlesque characters - Silas, the mad and murderous
monk, and Ian McKellen's crazed, crippled amateur historian on a
bizarre personal mission to restore Mary Magdalene's descendant to
her rightful place - are simply ridiculous. Both actors have a
splendid time wringing melodrama from their roles, but Howard's
film is far too leaden to allow us to enjoy it. Even Audrey
Tautou's natural appeal is diminished by the grim expression she is
required to wear throughout.

"It's just a thriller," said one critic. "Yes," replied a film
festival programmer, "but it's not very thrilling."